


Just Another Saturday Night

by Severina



Category: Die Hard (Movies)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17813687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: The Warlock forces Matt to stretch his wings on a Saturday night.





	Just Another Saturday Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'sex shop' from a weekend challenge at LJ's 1_million_words. Thanks to Snick for reminding me to think outside the box when I saw my prompt and panicked.
> 
> * * *

Present

_"We have a Level One 10-31 in progress, Cannon and Vine. Available units in the area, please respond."_

John leaned across to grab the mic from underneath the dashboard. He'd just finished a thirteen hour shift, eleven of which was spent sitting on his ass doing paperwork. He'd filled the final three hours doing nothing more than fantasizing about finally getting home to his sofa, a cold beer and the last half of the Giants game. It had only taken ten minutes in the car for the prospect to switch from enticing to unappealing.

The house was too clean. The house was too quiet. 

There was no one making a mess in his kitchen; no one blabbering with his mouth full and chattering all through dinner. There were no wet towels on the bathroom floor for him to slip on. There was no arguing over what to watch on TV (John's vote was always sports; the kid actually watched shit like _Jersey Shore_ ) or on the radio (classics vs. squealing guitar and screaming vocals.) 

Matt had only stayed with him for a few weeks while Bowman worked out a 'reward' that would enable the kid to put a roof over his head and replace his computer doodads. Enough to get him back on his feet. He'd moved out a month ago. So how come it felt like he'd been missing the kid forever?

Leftover spaghetti was unappealing. Bud wasn't as enjoyable if a smartass punk wasn't needling him about additives and calorie content. The last place he wanted to be was on his tattered sofa, staring at the boob tube. Alone. Christ, he needed a hobby.

But until he took up macramé, helping out with a robbery in progress sounded like just the ticket. A shitty end to a shitty day.

John thumbed the mic. "CTB7, three blocks away."

_"Roger, CTB7,"_ dispatch responded. Sounded like Maria. Cute kid, five foot two and tough as nails. Probably wasn't fool enough to volunteer for extra duty just to avoid going home to an empty house. _"Caller reports possible shots fired. Address is 4576 Cannon, store name Paulie's Porn Emporium."_

"Jeeezus," John mumbled. "I pick all the best places to hang out on a Saturday night."

_"Repeat, CTB7?"_

John shook his head. "Nothin', Maria. CTB7, en route."

_"Roger that. Be careful out there, McClane."_

John set the mic back into the cradle as he made a quick left onto Poplar. "Don't ya know," he said to the empty car, "Careful's my middle name."

 

Two Hours Earlier

"Okay, what the fuck is wrong with you, Farrell?"

"Huh?" Matt blinked at the monitor, avoiding the Warlock's scowling face in the corner of the screen. At some point while he'd been vegging out, the game had ended. Bloodily, if the scythe sticking through his avatar's chest was any indication.

"That's the second time my paladin has wiped the floor with your pasty ass! And he's not even a very effective paladin. He's level two! I was trying to take it easy on you since you're clearly not on your game. And here you are, letting yourself get pulverized by a level two paladin, Farrell. It's like I don't even know you anymore."

"No, yeah, I just... I hear ya, man." He twirled a finger at ear level. "I'm just all… sleep deprived? Can't concentrate, it's so messed up, you don't even know. There's this… draught? And it... there's cold air. So. And the people who live upstairs have this dog, he barks half the damn night and I can't… you know… sleep. Hence the sleep deprivation. That I mentioned. Earlier."

He looked earnestly at the 'cam, trying his best to project sincerity. It wasn't like he was completely _lying_ , after all. He _was_ sleep deprived. It just wasn't because of draughty windows or yapping Pomeranians. It might have something to do with a certain senior detective at the NYPD. Which was ridiculous because he didn't even like cops. 

Except for this particular cop.

Who was straighter than a match stick and twice as combustible. And made Matt think stupid things like _that_ , and spend half his nights tossing and turning as he tried to remember the exact shade of John's eyes, or as he replayed all the times that John had grabbed, clutched, hugged and generally manhandled him into a half-erect state over the course of their long weekend in July. Not to even mention the time he spent actually _living_ with the guy, watching the muscles in his back flex as he tinkered with the old Buick in his garage (going against doctor's orders when he should have been resting his shoulder, because _McClane_.) And Matt totally had a pavlovian response to threadbare wife-beaters now, which was... weird.

But anyway. The Warlock didn't need to know anything about his messed-up feelings for his super-straight partner in saving the world, and-- 

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Just call McClane and tell him you wanna jump his bones."

Matt lurched back. He had never actually been gut-punched, being the type who went to fetch the teacher when anything potentially gut-punchable was brewing on the playground, but he was pretty sure now that he knew what it felt like. And it was kinda like getting shot in the shin, just with less blood and more suffocation. "Uh," he finally managed to get out, "… I don't know what you mean?"

"You don't know what I--," Warlock spluttered. "Do you think I'm an idiot, Farrell? Is there anything about me that indicates that I've undergone a complete frontal lobotomy?"

"I'm gonna go with 'no'?"

"Ding ding ding! You think I don't notice that you mention the dude seventy-five times per conversation? Last week you rambled on for ten minutes about watching him wash his car!"

Matt had a vague recollection of mentioning the car washing to Warlock. In passing. Ten minutes seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Still… "I did?"

"You spent four minutes on his tattoo," Warlock said. He shook his head. "It was pathetic, dude."

Matt slumped back in his chair. So much for keeping things on the down-low. He really _was_ pathetic. He had a better chance of getting into Newt Gingrich's pants than John McClane's, but at least he'd hoped he'd kept the drooling to a minimum. But noooo, his ludicrous little crush was apparently on full display for the world to see.

"So?" the Warlock prodded. "Phone call? Hot butt action?"

Matt shook his head so fast and hard that he almost got whiplash. "He's straight, man."

The Warlock snorted.

"Trust me, I lived with the guy. There was never any inkling." And he had hoped. May have prayed. Quite possibly had shown up one night in John's bedroom doorway, pajama bottoms slouched low on his hips, and given his best come hither stare. Done a little heavy breathing. He got nothing.

"If you're not gonna man up and call the guy, then at least go rent some porn. Take the edge off, dude. I already googled it, don't worry, I got ya covered. There's a porn hub, like, three blocks away. Big neon 'sex shop' sign out front, can't miss it. Guaranteed to have a fine selection of jack-off material for all your bald-cop-fantasy needs."

Out of control. This was _out of control_. How did they get from a friendly game of Knight's Quest to 'hot butt action' and mass quantities of porn? He had to shut this down, stat.

"Okay, first," Matt said derisively, " _porn hub_? And second, if I wanted to jerk off to thoughts of McClane, _which I don't_ , there's only about a hundred sites that I could—"

Matt blinked when his screen suddenly filled with half a dozen video covers, each one featuring a steroidal bodybuilder type in street blues whose uniform barely kept his muscles constrained. 

"Beefy Cops Volume 3," he read incredulously. "Cops R Us. Anal COPulation."

"And don't forget my favourite, 'Copcakes'," the Warlock put in.

The image files disappeared from his monitor as quickly as they appeared, but not before Matt had a sickening, sinking thought. It's not like the Warlock was prepping porn covers as they spoke. Even if he was working something up on another screen, Matt would have noticed. Which meant that he had those files readily available. Hell, he might have scanned them himself.

He might _own_ them himself.

Which meant… "Wait. Uh. Warlock. Are you—"

"No, I'm not gay," Warlock said. "I just knew that there was going to come a day, very soon, when you would reach a breaking point. And what kind of friend would I be if I left you hanging?"

"Kind of like how you left me out to dry during the firesale? That kind of friend?" Yeah, he was still a little bitter about that 'get gone' message and Warlock's sudden disappearance from chat.

"Extenuating circumstances," Warlock answered quickly. "And besides, I made up for it by figuring out all the Woodlawn shit. Anyway, I also happen to prefer to be well-informed on many subjects. I could probably talk rings around you about this gay stuff. Fingering? I got ya. Anal beads? We can discuss anal beads 'til you are blue in the face, dude."

"No, I don't wanna discuss—"

"Fetish play?" Warlock interrupted. "I spent a whole evening once reading about pony play, quite interesting, there's a dildo that actually gets inserted—"

Matt buried his head in his hands. "Please stop."

"Are you gonna go and rent some hot gay police action so you can whack off and get some sleep?"

"If I say yes," Matt mumbled, "will you promise to stop talking about dildos and ponies?"

"Swear on my mother's life."

Matt raised his head in time to see Warlock give the boy scout salute. He sighed before pushing back from his desk. "Then I guess," he said resignedly, "I'm about to get a membership at Paulie's Porn Emporium."

 

Present

John beat the black and white by twenty seconds; long enough to be out of the car and flashing his badge before the younger of the two was able to disengage his seat belt. And Christ, was the department hiring high school students now? He had underwear older than this kid.

"Detective..?"

"McClane," John filled in, and watched the reflexive bob of the rookie's adam's apple as he swallowed nervously. Yeah, everybody thinks they know all about John McClane. He didn't have any buildings to blow up, there's not a Gruber in sight, and no, it ain't a holiday today, thank you very much. 

He nodded to the senior of the pair, gave quick directions on where he needed them to be before he drew his gun and stepped inside the store.

The first thing John saw was the clerk. Thin, Asian, and seriously pissed the fuck off, the dude had been bound by… John blinked. Whips. Those were definitely whips.

And he thought California was weird.

The clerk had already worked one hand partially free and was squirming to untie the other, grunting around the cloth tied over his mouth. John raised a hand, hoped that the guy understood that he'd be back, then stepped cautiously around the shards of broken glass that littered the floor to do a quick sweep of the front of the store. No one behind the counter. No one hiding behind the oversized display of… well, he wasn't quite sure what they were, but they were made of black and red nylon and a whole lotta fringe. He edged his way behind the open register; kept his gun at shoulder ready before swinging around and through the open door of the small storeroom. Also empty.

John holstered his gun, still riding the edge of the adrenalin high even though there weren't any bad guys in the area, then bent to free the clerk.

"They're gone," the man said as soon as his mouth was free.

"Gun?"

The clerk shook his head. "No. Bastards had a baseball bat. Got the drop on me before I could hit the panic button. Shattered my fucking display case! You know how much those things cost?"

"Talk to your insurance," John answered.

"There's a kid," the clerk said, and for a moment John wondered what a child had to do with the insurance premiums on a smut-house. But the clerk's chin jutted toward one of the side aisles just as John heard the moan, and he called himself ten types of schmuck for not checking out the entire store. 

Mistakes like that get you killed. Mistakes like that get other people killed.

"Go see the officer outside," he told the clerk even as he hurried toward the sound of distress. "Give him a suspect description and tell him to get it over the air ASAP. And call for an ambulance!"

His feet crunched over broken glass as he rounded the corner of a display rack, and then for a moment he forgot to breathe.

He saw Holly hanging thirty stories up, the glint of the moonlight on that stupid watch. He saw jet fuel blazing on the snow-covered ground. He saw the tears on Lucy's cheeks, and the kid jerking back as the bullet hit his leg, and the blood splatter on the ground..

"Jesus, kid," he said, dropping to one knee. 

Matt lay among a scattering of DVD discs, wrists tied in front of him and a cloth stuck between his teeth. But what John noticed first was the ripening bruise on his forehead, a nasty reddish brown that looked raw and moist. He ripped the cloth away from the kid's mouth and worked quickly at tugging away the whip-ropes, but his other hand hovered over that bruise.

Mistakes like that can hurt someone you really care about.

Matt blinked up at him; tried to move his head and winced. "Tried to stop him," he said. He gestured to his brow with the hand that John had worked free, managed a weak smile. "My mother always did say I had a thick skull."

"Jesus, kid," John repeated.

"Did you catch them? The bad guys?" 

"Clerk's workin' on a description. We'll get 'em."

"You know, it's super weird that you only show up when I get hurt. Or when I'm about to get hurt. 'Least this time I didn't get shot. Concussion for the win though, right?" 

"Super weird," John agreed dryly. "Ambulance is on the way."

Matt snorted. "It's just a little cut, I don't need to go to the hosp—" He put a palm down to the dirty floor to push himself up, and his eyes widened as he gasped and then lowered himself slowly back to the floor. "Okay, yeah, that wasn't such a good... I think I should probably just—"

"Stay there."

"--stay here," Matt said. "Yeah. This is fine."

John glanced up toward the front of the shop. No movement. No sound of sirens from down the block. Looked back at Matt, who had gone pasty. Well, pastier than usual. He didn't like the thin sheen of sweat that had popped up on the kid's upper lip, either. Or the way Matt's eyelashes were fluttering as he leaned back against the wire shelving.

He'd been the first line of defense when somebody needed to be kept awake. Hell, he'd been the guy lurching around, hangin' off a buddy's shoulder, because you don't just give up the booze even after you'd saved all the gold in the federal reserve. Because you're still on probation and your wife still hates your guts and it apparently takes a few more rounds of self-pity before you hit rock bottom and show up at your buddy's store at three in the afternoon smelling like a distillery. 

He's lucky Zeus didn't shoot him with that shotgun he kept behind the counter.

So yeah, he knew all about keeping people awake. And he knew that if you can't keep 'em walking then you gotta keep 'em talking. And Christ knows the kid liked to talk. And talk. And... fuck, he missed it.

John ignored the protests of his knees with long practice and eased down onto his ass across from Matt. He stretched out his legs, brushing aside the DVDs strewn across the floor to make room. "So," he said. "Paulie's Porn Emporium. Really, kid?"

Matt slid his eyes over, shrugged a shoulder that was still too thin. Hell, half the kid's clothes were hanging off of him. Probably back to living off Cheetos and Red Bull, when there's a whole refrigerator full of food at John's place that's just getting freezer burn.

And then Matt blushed.

And ducked his head.

His long hair fell into his face. It was definitely longer than the last time John saw him, on the day that Matt packed what little shit he had and headed out to his own place and John sat in front of the blank television screen for two hours wondering how the hell this _thing_ had happened and what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

"It's not like…" Matt raised his head. "I just came in because I was out of Doritos and they have a whole… there's a display and I thought I could… it was closer than the store."

"Uh huh."

"If I wanted to watch porn, McClane, I could hack into a dozen—" Matt paused at John's raised brow, cleared his throat. "I could _legitimately sign up for accounts_ at dozens of porn sites online. Hundreds even!"

"Right."

"Now you! _You're_ such a troglodyte that you probably _have_ to come out to the old brick and mortar, and then you'd spend two hours trying to fit the DVD in your VHS player. Because you're—"

"Old," John interrupted. He didn't wince. 

"Stodgy!" Matt said.

"Stodgy."

"And set in your ways," Matt said. His eyes looked a little brighter now, his voice a hell of a lot more animated, and John congratulated himself on a job well done. Matt barely even grimaced when his brow creased, the bruise there seemingly forgotten for the moment. "But you're not… no, not old, John."

John nodded. Considered his options. 

Because he _was_ old, at least comparative to Matt's mid-twenties. He _was_ stodgy. He used his computer to peck out emails to his kids; Matt used his to save the entire country. His bones creaked, he was sore more often than not and lonely all the damn time. And he'd spent the last month telling himself that he had no right to inflict himself on the kid; that even the thought of it would probably make Matt run for the hills.

Now? Now he had options.

And fuck it. He mostly tried to be a good guy, but he was also greedy and horny and… he wanted. He wanted Matt.

John shifted on the worn tile. "So you just came in here for Doritos."

"Yeah. Just my luck to get caught in the middle of the Great Pornstore Robbery of '07."

John tried not to roll his eyes as Matt huffed out the lamest, most insincere laugh he'd ever heard.

"Didn't come in for anything else, right?"

"McClane, I told you—"

"Yeah, you did, kid," John said. He nudged one of the DVD cases on the floor with the toe of his boot. Couldn't quite stop the smirk. "So you wanna explain this, Matt?"

Matt looked down at the floor, squinted... and then promptly turned pink. He blinked rapidly. "What? No, that's…I don't know what you're… it must have fallen from the… that's not mine!"

John raised a brow. "'The Boys in Blue, featuring buff bald Bobby McGee'," he intoned.

"Is that ambulance here yet? 'Cause I feel like I might throw up."

"Kinda looks like…" John cocked his head, "…gay cop porn."

"My stomach. Really queasy."

"Matt?"

"Okay, okay, that one's mine!" Matt exploded. "But holy shit, McClane, it is not my fault. You go around being all HANDSY and tossing me around like I'm a… a… a salt shaker, and then you invite me into your home and you spend half the goddamn day lounging around in faded old jeans with the top button undone and… That. Damn. Wifebeater. And you get all growly when you say stuff like 'pass the potatoes' and what is a guy to do, McClane? What? Please fill me in on a how a lonely gay boy with the hots for the super studdiest straight cop in the _world_ can possibly get some without getting punched in the face!"

"You coulda… asked me?"

"What part of straight did you not…" Matt paused in full whirlwind-arm, took in a breath. "Wait. What?"

"You ever think maybe I was doin' a little droolin' of my own?"

"YOU WERE NOT."

"Jeeeezus, kid, if you'd just given me some kinda hint we wouldn't have wasted the last couple of months—"

"I _did_!"

"You did not—"

"That time! When I went to your bedroom! I had on my plain pajama bottoms, and I leaned against the doorframe—"

"That was you seducing me?" John asked incredulously. "Jesus, kid, I thought you were havin' an asthma attack!"

Matt slumped back against the shelving. "I am so lame."

" _We_ are so lame," John said. "But the advantage to bein' old, kid—"

"Jesus, McClane, you're not old!"

"—is that you know you're gonna fuck up and you also know you get the chance to fix those fuck-ups." He thought briefly of his kids – one of whom was already back to calling herself Gennero but was at least speaking to him; the other wouldn't even return his calls – and knew that sometimes that wasn't true. Sometimes one fuck-up led to another which led to another and there was no umbrella big enough for the catastrophic fallout.

But that wasn't _this_. This _thing_ with the kid had seem destined ever since he'd felt Matt trembling in his arms in that tunnel, plaster falling onto their heads from a very narrow miss by a transport truck. It was why he'd teased the kid about being sexy covered in dirt and blood; why he'd grinned when Matt's voice had gone up three octaves in his hasty denial. He'd tried to stifle it when Matt was living in his spare room, had let all the little doubts creep in. 

That wasn't going to happen now.

John groaned as he pushed himself to his feet, then lowered a hand to haul Matt up beside him. The strobe lights from the arriving ambulance flickered over the overturned shelves, illuminated the shards of glass on the floor and turned them into sparkling jewels. He led the kid by the elbow carefully over the mess, talking as he went. "Here's what we're gonna do," he said. "We're gonna get you checked over by the paramedics and make sure you're squared away, and then we're gonna head back to my place. And spoiler alert: you're not gonna need that DVD."

"Uh, John? Don't you have crime scene reports to file or something? Witness interviews? A BOLO to put out?"

John stopped with the tips of his boots just over the threshold. "Shit."

"And I should probably…" Matt gestured toward his forehead. "Not do anything too strenuous for twenty-four to forty-eight hours."

" _Shit._ "

"But hey. Tuesday night. I'm totally free for a not-needing-a-DVD night." He lifted a shoulder, looking suddenly uncertain. Fragile. Fucking _young_. "If you wanna."

The not-so-rookie cop had spotted him and was heading his way; the medics were gathering their shit; a media van had pulled in behind a loose police line and was setting up next to the sub shop. John held up a hand that he hoped would stop them all for a few more seconds, turned to the kid. "You think you can keep yourself together that long?" he asked. "After all, I _do_ only show up when you get hurt."

"Pretty sure this time you're going to put me back together," Matt said, and then groaned. "Did I just say that out loud?"

"You did."

"I have a habit of…" he whirled his finger, "…just whatever comes into my head, verbal vomit, there it is, out there for the world to hear. And make fun of."

"Ain't makin' fun, kid," John said softly.

"Yeah," Matt said, equally quietly. "Okay."

"Tuesday?"

"Tuesday."

Then there was the uniform, Craigroyston (or maybe Craig Royston) filling him in on the witness report, and the rookie gazing up at him with adoring (and still slightly terrified) eyes, and the back-up blues reporting on their door-to-doors. But he managed to steal glances toward the ambulance every now and then; saw Matt wince when the medic shone the penlight into his eyes; watched Matt's mouth move and his arms gesticulate wildly as he made a point.

Tuesday. Those vigorous arms and that clever mouth would be in his house. Filling it with chatter, with laughter, with absurd conspiracy theories. He'd make the kid his famous fettucine alfredo. They could eat in the dining room like decent human beings. He'd even let Matt watch whatever insipid reality show was on that night.

And after. 

What had Matt said? Tossing him around, gettin' handsy? Yeah, he could handle that.


End file.
